Self-Discipline: As a Little Child?

I attended a parenting class last week. Self-conscious as I was going into it, I was not the oldest person in the room. There was a fair amount of graying hair–various educators, as well as other grandparents, were in attendance. We were drawn to the free two-hour session by its title:  “Say Yes to No: Teaching Kids Self-Discipline.”  (It was based on the book to the right, which you can learn more about here.)

Our Lucy, bright and funny and energetic, is still a typical three-year-old: willful, testing her limits, testing our limits, asserting her own will. I know we need to get a handle on that, but instead I have found myself having PTSD (preschool temper & sassing days) flashbacks, along with the feeling that I never did know quite how to handle this stage.

My epiphany–although I couldn’t articulate it until just now–has been the realization that while self-discipline and self-control are largely the same, disciplining a child is not at all the same thing as controlling her.

And therein lay my greatest parenting failures.

Tough Parenting Choices Make Us Think of the Ultimate Parent

Ric Runestad

Ric Runestad is a resident of Fort Wayne and an occasional guest editorial writer for our evening paper, the News-Sentinel. I opened to the editorial page on Thursday and read a remarkable piece of apologetic–a really fresh response to the timeless question of “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

You can read the entire piece by following the link. I’ve reprinted a slightly abridged version, along with a follow-up thought I had about it.

[Not knowing how to contact Mr. Runestad directly, I can only hope that he won’t mind.]

The young couple sat holding their newborn baby as the stranger entered the hospital room…

Without preamble he began. “I represent a company that wishes to make you an offer. A ‘bargain’ we will call it. This new child of yours is just what we are needing for an experiment.

#Parenting Tips: If your 2-year-old dials 911 FIFTEEN TIMES, …you’re doing it wrong.

Call me judgmental, but I think there’s a larger problem here:

(via Yahoo! News) – “…Authorities have charged a northern New York woman and her boyfriend because the woman’s 2-year-old daughter used their cellphones to dial 911 a total of 15 times last month.

Village of Lowville Police Officer Matthew Martin says the 23-year-old mother and her 33-year-old boyfriend told him they tried to keep their phones away from the persistent toddler, but the girl kept getting them and dialing 911.

(Officer Martin) charged the couple the next day with obstructing governmental administration…”

As the father of two (now teenage) boys, I gotta ask: fifteen times? Fifteen? Am I the only one who’s trying to figure out how this is even possible??

If you’re a #parent, then you’ll understand: The “Parent Rap” (VIDEO)

My beautiful wife was homeschooling our two sons when I left for work this morning and she was doing a wonderful job, as always. For whatever reason, this video then jumped into my mind, …and made me chuckle.

Our boys are older than the ones in the clip, but I can still relate to every word. We posted this a couple years back and, after watching it again, it seems to hold up nicely.

I’ll reiterate here what I said back then: “…if ALL hip-hop was this entertaining, I’d listen to it waaaay more often…”

Are we Protecting our kids, …or Failing to Prepare them?

If today’s children truly are the leaders of tomorrow, we are going to have the most passive, ossified leaders in the history of the planet.

It’s no secret that the tree-climbing, BB-gun-shooting, rub-some-dirt-on-it ways of past generations bear no resemblance to today’s bubble-wrapped youth. Trying to eliminate pain of every kind, both physical and psychological, has resulted in a society where no one is supposed to keep score (even though kids still do), and games like Dodge Ball are widely banned.

But is this really healthy? Didn’t we all learn how to get back up after we fell? Didn’t we learn how to take a punch, or play through pain? Didn’t we figure out that scraped-up knees and elbows were a reasonable trade-off for seeing how fast you can run, or how high you can jump?

Not according to the risk averse, anti-fun squad otherwise known as today’s parents and educators: 

How to Raise Your Kids to be Great Citizens: CHANGE the way you praise

Visual oxymoron…

Yesterday, JTR shared  a video in which a liberal Democrat borrowed religious language to ask God to bless and further the abortion agenda. Surely this was the ultimate oxymoron!  Now, I have no way of knowing whether she was being ironic. She appeared to be perfectly sincere, and quite unaware of how bizarre and contradictory she sounded to a Christian who is pro-life.

As I thought about this, I began to wonder whether conservative God-fearers sometimes borrow the rhetoric and values of the secular world, perhaps without even knowing it.

• We may nod our heads when we hear the phrase, “In the world but not of it;”
• we may tap our toe in time to “This world is not my home, I’m only passing through;”
• we may hang up a plaque that reads, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord;”
• we may think we are raising our children to be God-fearing, devout and humble.

But. Are we really?

Teaching our kids the value of Good Character

I’ve been telling my two sons the same message for their entire lives: my goal for them is that they grow up to be strong, kind, solid men of good character. And anything I do or don’t do is in furtherance of that goal.

As a result, both of them (ages 12 & 13) are presently strong, kind, good boys… so far. I’m hardly naïve, and well aware that with the gift of free will, they could one day make destructive decisions which upend all my and my wife’s hard work.

But I wouldn’t bet on that happening.